SCANDAL IN THE CHURCH

The stories had been leaking out for years in dribs and drabs. The Catholic priesthood had within its’ ranks some number of sexual predators who targeted children – mostly boys – with which they contact. The narratives were all pretty much the same. A victim would come forward. The Church would quietly, if possible, pay them off. Then, rather than turning the offending priest over to the authorities, he would be discreetly reassigned, usually to some place where he would still have access to young people. Then in 2002, the Boston Globe broke a story that revealed 70 abusers and a network of silence imposed by the Church with the cooperation of law enforcement officials. This followed other episodes both in the US as well as abroad. “In 1985, Louisiana priest Gilbert J. Gauthe was convicted of molesting at least 39 children between 1972 and 1983. In 1995, Cardinal Hans Hermann Groër was forced to resign from his position as archbishop of Vienna after allegations of child sex abuse were made public, although he retained his title of cardinal and was allowed to continue in lower-profile church ministry almost until his death.” Jump ahead to August of 2018 when a report revealed 300 abusing clerics and 1,000 victims.[i] Now, cities across the nation are starting similar investigations.

House of torture

On the heels of all that came this report. A new four-year-long investigative report corroborated the long-rumored stories of massive abuse – and even murder of children – that occurred at a Burlington, Vermont orphanage, at the hands of the nuns there.[ii] One of the former residents of St Joseph’s Orphanage described one incident for lawyers. “It was a late summer afternoon, Sally Dale recalled, when the boy was thrown through the fourth-floor window. ‘He kind of hit, and—’ she placed both hands palm-down before her. Her right hand slapped down on the left, rebounded up a little, then landed again. For just a moment, the room was still. ‘Bounced?’ one of the many lawyers present asked. ‘Well, I guess you’d call it — it was a bounce,’ she replied. ‘And then he laid still.’” Dale went on to say how she saw a nun standing in the window. She had been walking in the yard escorted by another sister. When the incident happened that nun “took hold of Sally’s ear, turned her around, and walked her back to the other side of the yard. The nun told her she had a vivid imagination. ‘We are going to have to do something about you, child.’”[iii] But St Joseph’s was not the only orphanage turned into a torture chambers. Similar reports are surfacing in the United Kingdom, Australia and Ireland.[iv]

Pope Francis: Under siege

The exploding abuse scandals are leading to deep divisions within Catholicism, with some calling for the resignation of Pope Francis. Jason Horowitz, writing for The New York Times explains. “Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the former Vatican ambassador, accused the pope of knowing about sexual misconduct by an American cardinal, Theodore E. McCarrick, with adult seminarians years before the abuse became public. Archbishop Viganò also said that Francis lifted sanctions on the cardinal that he claimed had been imposed by his predecessor, Benedict XVI.”[v] Vigano’s claim was supported by the Reverend Monsignor Anthony Figueiredo, Director of an American priest school located in Rome.[vi] There is speculation out there that conservative elements within the Catholic hierarchy are using the scandals as a tool to force the removal of Pope Francis. While Pope’s John Paul II and Benedict XVI spoke took strong stands against the abuse, Pope Francis has been lukewarm at best on the subject. As reported in the Guardian, Pope Francis “accused victims of Chile’s most notorious paedophile of slander, in an astonishing end to a visit meant to help heal the wounds of a sex abuse scandal that has cost the Catholic church its credibility in the country.”[vii] He has since reversed his initial position, without however ordering any concrete steps to address the issue. The Huffington Post reports: “Francis several years ago scrapped a proposed Vatican tribunal to prosecute negligent bishops, and he has refused to act on credible reports from around the world of bishops who have failed to report abusers to police or otherwise botched handling cases, and yet remain in office.”[viii]

You can hear it in the voices on social media and among the callers to talk radio. The darkness that has descended on Roman Catholicism is bringing about the first stirrings of a crisis of faith. It cannot be otherwise. Those who would take Christ’s mantle must be held to a higher standard. 1Peter 4:15-17 tells us: “But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God

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Our very name, Absolute Truth & Prophecy Ministries, reveals our heart. The two most driving passions that the Lord has laid on my heart
and hopefully enabled me to communicate with
folks are:

1) TRUTH IS ABSOLUTE. God’s Word is True

2) GOD’S PROPHECIES ARE TRUE. The Truth of His word, - as revealed in the Scriptures, lets us know that we are living in very special times; - on the very threshold of the return of Jesus. (I got excited just writing that last sentence!)